497 Awakening: attitudes towards Awakening

              Attributes towards equanimity, and eventually Awakening Part 1

Awakening is not something miraculous, a divine and mysterious bliss for which we have to work hard to achieve. It already exists in all of us, deep inside. The secret is to reveal it by bringing our ego balloon from its stratosphere, back down to earth. 

The practice of daily meditation is the best tool to reveal and experience it because it is the only way to control our mind which is almost always in a dreaming state rather than being in the awakened one.

Here is the first part of the list, in non-specific order, of the main attributes linked to Awakening.

The second part will follow next week. 

  1 Being able to differentiate factual realities of the current world from our mind-made fictional ones which include thoughts, feelings, opinions, and mindset, not necessarily based on facts but rather from our emotions. Unable to differentiate is called ignorance or delusion, and part of “day sleepwalking”.

Being a “Day sleepwalker”  as Zeb is calling it is the opposite of being awakened. 

During mindfulness meditation, we are practicing short Awakening since we focus on something concrete such as breathing. The prime tool to practice Awakening is meditation.

  2 Learning to disidentify ourselves from our thoughts/feelings/opinions/concepts unless analytic thinking is necessary.

  3 Practicing mindfulness meditation regardless of current life issues that we are facing, and not 

only when you have time. If you cannot make time for it, meditation is not a priority. Quit and do something else.

  4  Being in the moment except when planning is mandatory. It means bringing, in a mindful way,  our mind to where our body is and what it does. When your body is under the shower, bring your mind with it. 

  5 Understanding that suffering is mostly self-generated and is made of desire, hatred, and delusions,

  6 Giving up on defining yourself.

  7 Considering the ego as a friend but also as an enemy.

  8 Having an open mind is also called a “ beginner mind” in Zen literature. 

 It means not being a prisoner of our conceptual mind and mindset.

  9 Appreciating silence and solitude.

10 Nonresistance, and acceptance of events, situations, and people as they are and as they happen and not as we want them to be, especially when we don’t have any control over them.

The second part will be next week.  Thanks